


Ache and Burn

by ClassicPlastic



Series: God is a woman, and she fucks a woman [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Fem!Billy Hargrove, Fem!Steve Harrington, Genderbending, I love these women, Pre-Relationship, how naive i was, remember when I said I don't ship harringrove?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25892206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClassicPlastic/pseuds/ClassicPlastic
Summary: Billie makes Steph feel like she's on fire.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: God is a woman, and she fucks a woman [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879765
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	Ache and Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ya'll, how ya'll doing? Yes instead of working on the Stranger Things fic I've been writing for the past two years, I sat down and wrote this. So. Here.

Billie makes Steph feel like she’s on fire. Every time she sees her-in the halls at school, at basketball practice, in the arcade parking lot after dropping off the kids-she feels something hot and angry licking up the back of her throat. But she keeps her cool. Billie rams her down on the court and tailgates her on the street and yells ‘Hey, Harrington!’ so that she has Steph’s attention when she sarcastically asks if Steph was late because she was busy getting her nails done. (Which is _not_ the case. Steph doesn't even get her nails done anymore, she paints them herself. She used to get them done, with Tonya at the salon in the next town over, but those days are long gone.) Steph takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and keeps walking. Because she is going to be the bigger person about this. She’s not going to let some crazy bitch from out west get under her skin. She’s Stephanie Anne fucking Harrington. She’s fought monsters from another dimension! She drives around with a nail studded baseball bat in the back of her car! She used to be the goddamn queen, the _Empress_ of Hawkins High, and though she may have lost that title, she hasn’t lost her dignity. So when Billie Hargrove leans over her on the basketball court, smelling of sweat and cheap shampoo and little bit like the ocean, and hisses ‘ _plant your feet_ ’, Steph pushes down the urge to punch her (and does her very best to ignore the fact that she’s practically nose to nose with Billie's cleavage). Because she is the _better fucking person_.

Then that night at the Byers happens. There’s a group of frightened 13 year olds inside the house, including one mouthy redhead who is terrified of his own stepsister. That flicker inside of Steph becomes a full blown forest fire in a matter of seconds, and Billie has Lucille pinned up against the bookcase by her collar (Lucille knees the bitch in the stomach, because she’s a clever kid, but that’s beside the point). So Steph swings. And. Well. She’s always had a bad habit of picking fights she can’t win. 

A moment before she blacks out, she’s vaguely reminded of last fall. Billie is much stronger than Jennifer Byers, and no patrolling cops are going to break this up. 

~

Billie makes Steph ache, and it’s not just the mild concussion she has from being beat into the Byers floorboards. Although, yeah, that hurts too. She’s sitting in her car before school, fretting over her concealer in the rear view mirror, when she spots Billie’s Camaro. And she just _aches_ . She feels it like exhaustion, deep in her bones. She doesn’t want to deal with Billie today, doesn’t _need_ this today. Steph braces herself as she gets out of the car, half expecting Billie to just jump her then and there. 

That doesn't happen, though. Nothing happens.

~

Nothing continues to happen for the first three hours of the school day. It puts Steph on edge, although she supposes this is exactly what she’d wanted from the start; for this beach babe with anger issues to _leave_ her _alone_. 

At exactly 11:36 am, Steph is washing her hands in the restroom by the language hall when the swinging door slams open. She jumps about a foot in the air, flinging soapy water all over the mirror. 

Billie smirks at her. “Y’know, if your reflexes were that fast on the court, princess, maybe you wouldn’t be so easy to knock around.” 

Steph is going to _lose her damn mind_. 

She tenses as Billie approaches, but all she does is hop up onto the next sink in the row. Steph refuses to meet her eyes; not because she’s afraid, mind you. Sure, she didn’t necessarily enjoy getting her ass handed to her, but she’s fried bigger fish in this town. She’s just _tired_. 

She can feel Billie staring at her, though. 

Steph still doesn't lift her gaze. She can see the edge of the porcelain biting into Billie’s thick thighs. 

“It’s fucked up.” Billie finally says. 

“Yeah, is it.” Steph snaps back. She doesn't even know exactly what Billie is referring to, but she’s too fed up to really care. A lot of things are fucked up right now, including Billie. 

“Your makeup, Harrington.” Billie says, and she sounds exasperated. Steph wants to snort. She doesn’t have the goddamn _right_ to be exasperated. “You did an awful job hiding that shiner.” 

Steph finally looks up, meets Billie’s eyes. They’re blue and grey and stormy, like what Steph imagines the sky must look like before a hurricane. Not that she’s ever seen the sky before a hurricane. Not that it matters. She’s seen plenty of other shit. 

“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a skill I’ve needed so far.” It’s a bit of a white lie. Whatever. It’s not like Billie knows about the fight with Jennifer Byers, like she would have any way of knowing about it. Unless Tonya told her. But Tonya is a gossip, and she’s sure Billie is smart enough to know that anything Tonya says should be taken with a grain of salt. 

“I could fix it.” Billie says, tone far too casual for the suggestion. Steph blinks at her. Something about the thought of Billie touching her face makes her ache even more. Maybe it’s really nausea. She’s taken a lot of Tylenol over the past few days. 

Steph dries her hands on her trousers and picks up her bag. “I’m fine, thanks.” 

“It really does look like shit, Harrington. Let me fix it.” Steph stops halfway to the door. Halfway away from Billie. Halfway to guaranteed safety. 

“Fine.” She says, although she doesn't really know why. She digs her makeup bag out of her backpack as she walks back to Billie. 

~  
  


Billie is surprisingly gentle. She carefully takes Steph’s jaw in her hand and dabs at her skin with a wet paper towel. She blends the concealer out with her finger, not a sponge like Steph did. Steph has to consciously make sure she’s not holding her breath. This moment feels like a truce of some sort, like the eye of a storm. 

When Billie pulls away, Steph checks her face in the dingy mirror. “Wow.” She honestly didn’t expect it to look that good. Billie’s own makeup typically consisted of heavy, dark eyeshadow and bloody lipsticks that left stains on cigarettes. Not that Steph paid any particular attention to Billie’s mouth. Sometimes you just. Notice things.

Billie shrugs. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” Steph figures that she’s probably referring to hickies, but something passes over Billie’s face for just one split second, and it makes Steph wonder for a moment if that’s actually not what she’s saying at all. 

Before she can linger on the thought, Billie hops down from the sink and makes to leave. 

Steph reaches out to catch her wrist. “Billie, I-” She feels like she’s chewing on her words. She doesn't _understand_ Billie, she doesn’t even really understand what the last 15 minutes in this bathroom have _been_. 

“Yeah.” Billie says, although she isn’t really replying to anything. She pulls away from Steph without looking at her and slips out of the bathroom. 

What the _fuck_. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very tempted to write a companion to this that consists exclusively of mutual lusting and pining. Mostly bc fem Billy is very hot.


End file.
